I am a licensed clinical social worker who just happens to adore the written word. I have had a private practice and am now writing a memoir on my life in the company of my father and many of my clients who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I hope to dispel some myths and break down some barriers for those with mental illness.
I write out of need and complete joy, which I hope to convey throughout my blogs. The human experience is not exclusive to one group. I hope to appeal to most as I touch on some pretty heady material with some self-deprecating humor and raw emotion thrown in for good measure.
I have four amazing children, one HUGE dog and a tolerant husband. I am blessed.

The human experience in all its glory….

All posts tagged: mental health

Too hard, she whispered, this life. It had borne down with such force as to suffocate the hope, eradicate the joy, extinguish the scope of what she believed she could handle. Where are you God? she whimpered, her vision fueled by sorrow…(more a cry for help than a questioning of His divine marrow. But would she even make herself follow?) Let me help you stand. She heard it softly, yet stronger than a whisper… she questioned His demand, began to answer but words came out […]

Thanksgiving Day, 2014 Dear Dad, This year is the very first year that I remember not avoiding your phone call. Every year of the past forty I have avoided what most consider a mundane task; and admit that I did this in several not-terribly-clever ways. All of which I was reasonably certain you could see right through, as you had the unfortunate hypervigilance of an individual with the brain wiring of a coyote. Always alert. Always defensive. Paranoid. Added to […]

EVERYWHERE she looked…grey. The sky, an unusually beautiful deep robin’s egg blue…grey. The scarlet roses in the garden that usually gave her so much joy and affirmation…grey. The pink-cheeked family that shared a fondness for laughter and loved her silliness…grey. The home that wrapped her in a yellow glow of warmth felt cold and grey. Her job with people who relied on her fiery red passion and the calming green hued wisdom…all grey. There was no escaping this dull hum of […]

Flat. As far as the eye could see. Brown with slight deviations of tan. The sand was lying face down along an area that appeared to transcend time. She stood tall against the background of stillness in the middle of nowhere. For as far as the eye could see it was all flat. Nothing more. She heard herself whisper this fact out loud to no one. There was no one anywhere that she could see or hear. She […]

TW for child abuse/sexual assault I remember talking to myself a great deal while growing up amidst chaos. Through memory and journals I was able to piece some of this together, mostly for self validation, but also to give people a look into the active, alert mind of quiet victims. Three year old me: Stop. But I need to get my medicine. Do not go that way. That’s where the angry voices are. Turn around and […]

Her tattoo read “just be held” in black lowercase typewriter-key font. It was perhaps one of the most impulsive decisions she’d made for the time commitment it required of her body. She treated herself to those particular three words on a warm day in July when she felt like she was coming completely undone. Casting Crowns new release,Thrive, had premiered on Pandora. In a moment of utter despair their song, “Just Be Held” spoke to her. It cut […]

Ok, just know going into this that I am both shamelessly venting and possibly overly dramatic. While moving forward don’t blame me for your sudden bout of indigestion. I am feeling angry. And I am resenting the fact that this anger is focused on the almighty power of one of my all time favorite defense mechanisms: Denial. Denial, by it’s most rudimentary definition is a disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing. A noun. Like a massive […]

According to Wikipedia, Complicated Grief Disorder (CGD) is a proposed disorder for those who are significantly and functionally impaired by prolonged grief symptoms for at least one month after six months of bereavement. (1) It is distinguished from non-impairing grief (2) and other disorders. It has been placed in the “lets take a closer look” bin by DSM-5 work groups (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) who have decided that it be called […]

Cremains are a dictionary term describing how a body turns from flesh and bone to ash. the author explores how difficult this is symbolically and where death fits into a life not lived. A personal account of mental illness, death and cremains.